a crack in your ear through which sound surreptitiously slips, or an illicit substance which gives your ears immense pleasure while enslaving them to a crippling addiction

Thursday, September 29, 2005

psycho babble

I once interviewed an illustrator of children's books who said that writing for kids is especially difficult, because when you are forced to become simple, all of your adult repressed psychological baggage is unwittingly revealed. And sometimes reducing your thoughts to their purest form leaves you with something you don't expect to find.

I've always felt that Halloween costumes are similarly revealing. And they're particularly interesting to me because you have people expressing themselves who don't generally do so with such a visible act of creativity. For instance, one year a guy I know dressed up as a proctologist. Now, I'm no psychoanalyst, but what that says to me is: this guy is a pain in the ass, or he likes to be. Another guy I know dressed up as a painting, with a frame around his head. To me, this means he doesn't just want to create or inspire art; he wants to BE art. And then there was the guy with a shoe glued to his crotch. I think you know where I'm going with this...

Anyway, I started thinking about this recently because I've been thinking about what to write in this blog. The interesting thing about blogging to me is not just the accessibility of the tools or the ability to communicate with people all over the world. It's that you never know who is going to read it. It could be my parents. It could be my ex-girlfriend. It could be my ex-girlfriend's parents. And because this is such a personal form of expression, almost like a diary (diarrhetic?), it's easy to get caught in the trap of second guessing. What some might find interesting, others might find TOO interesting... or really boring. See what I mean? It's impossible. Getting caught up in this way of thinking will paralyze you.

The only solution is to be myself.Sometimes a simple insight like this can prove itself most relevant.See, I feel better already.

All of which brings me to our sound of the post.It's a piece that I produced a few months ago for Studio 360, about a video game called Psychonauts (which by the way is a really excellent game, if you're into that sort of thing). The first voice you'll hear will be Kurt Anderson, he's the host of the show. And the Jonathan in the discussion after the piece that Kurt is talking to is not me, it's Jonathan Lear, a psychoanalyst and professor of philosphy at University of Chicago...

3 Comments:

Beckielee said...

Whew- I feel better now- I needed a Blog fix from you! You must not let your blog fester on the desolate landscape of bloggerdom. You must create! you must show the world what you are made of! You must write with the radio producin', improv actin', New York livin' courage I KNOW you got! YOU CAN DO THIS!

Besides, I get bored and I need to be entertained, ok? Take pitty on me...

I think I know what you mean. Whenever a person I know in "real life" starts reading my blog for the first time I go through a sort of temporary paranoia--what will they think about this online persona: too revealing? too fake? shallow? boring? pretentious? untalented? Etc.

You're right, the solution is just to be yourself and let 'em think what they're gonna think.